Virtual Learning Symposium

With the arrival of the online for-profit higher education
enterprise in the market and quickly reaching the top enrollment
ranking in 2009, it is evident that the students demand for
flexible schedules, on-demand access, and having access to more
courses are factors that influence students’ enrollment
behaviors.

However, it is no longer the for-profit sector that is providing
online degrees, but also AAU universities. These changes are
consistent with the findings of a recent Pew Internet Survey of
College Presidents: that 77% reported their institutions
now offer online courses, 15% said that most of their current
undergraduates have taken a class online, and 50% predict that 10
years from now most of their students will take their classes
online.

This proposal requests funds to offer a symposium on the UB
campus to examine best practices, business models and
implementation strategies involved in constructing virtual
education frameworks at colleges and universities around the
country. The symposium would attract virtual education
experts from around the country and engage a large fraction of the
UB faculty to attend the program. The symposium will provide
the feedback and impetus enabling UB to develop a comprehensive
plan and the best institutional strategy for building its own
virtual education framework capacity. We expect that this
framework will increase: student retention, out-of-state and
international students, tuition revenue, and student quality over
time. In addition, UB will increase accessibility to higher
education for people in surrounding, under-resourced rural
communities. The impact of this proposal will be evaluated in
terms of all of those metrics.